Hello there,
I've been looking around for a registry defragment tool/cleaner tool
for windows vista to keep my laptop and desktop in top shape.
Both are running Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit Edition.
Both have at 4gb of ram (laptop has additional 1gig intel turbo flash
cache for ready boost)
I saw
Wise Registry Cleaner
AusLogics Registry Defrag
CCLeaner
What else is there?
What's the most effective?
--
Coderedpl

Paul Montgomery replied on 24-Sep-08 01:17 PM

http://tinyurl.com/4kw5cx

John Barnett MVP replied on 24-Sep-08 02:10 PM

if you are not confident enough to edit the registry manually, then leave
well alone. Registry cleaners are not going to help and are more likely to
cause problems than solve them. Personally I use CCleaner 'but' I only use
the 'cleaner' section, I don't use the 'registry' cleaner.
--
--
John Barnett MVP
Windows XP Associate Expert
Windows Desktop Experience
Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org
Web: http://www.silversurfer-guide.com
The information in this mail/post is supplied "as is". No warranty of any
kind, either expressed or implied, is made in relation to the accuracy,
reliability or content of this mail/post. The Author shall not be liable for
any direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the
use of, or inability to use, information or opinions expressed in this
mail/post..

Coderedpl replied on 24-Sep-08 04:10 PM

Well I would not say I am not confident in doing it myself, but it would
definitely make my life easier.
--
Coderedpl

Paul Montgomery replied on 24-Sep-08 05:29 PM

To do what? Remove "orphaned" entries??
What will that do? How will it benefit your system?

If you seriously want to keep your computers in "top shape," you don't
ever want to use *ANY* registry cleaner on them. Period.
A registry cleaner - even a safe one, should such ever be developed
- is an exercise in, at best, futility. There is no real need for
registry cleaners, other than to provide a profit to their
manufacturers. On rare occasions, registry cleaners can be, in the
hands of a skilled technician, useful, time-saving diagnostic tools.
Otherwise, they're nothing but snake oil.
Why do you even think you'd ever need to clean your registry? What
specific *problems* are you actually experiencing (not some program's
bogus listing of imaginary problems) that you think can be fixed by
using a registry cleaner?
If you do have a problem that is rooted in the registry, it would
be far better to simply edit (after backing up, of course) only the
specific key(s) and/or value(s) that are causing the problem. After
all, why use a chainsaw when a scalpel will do the job? Additionally,
the manually changing of one or two registry entries is far less likely
to have the dire consequences of allowing an automated product to make
multiple changes simultaneously. The only thing needed to safely clean
your registry is knowledge and Regedit.exe.
The registry contains all of the operating system's "knowledge" of
the computer's hardware devices, installed software, the location of the
device drivers, and the computer's configuration. A misstep in the
registry can have severe consequences. One should not even turning
loose a poorly understood automated "cleaner," unless he is fully
confident that he knows *exactly* what is going to happen as a result of
each and every change.
Having repeatedly seen the results of inexperienced people using
automated registry "cleaners," I can only advise all but the most
experienced computer technicians (and/or hobbyists) to avoid them all.
Experience has shown me that such tools simply are not safe in the hands
of the inexperienced user. If you lack the knowledge and experience to
maintain your registry by yourself, then you also lack the knowledge and
experience to safely configure and use any automated registry cleaner,
no matter how safe they claim to be.
More importantly, no one has ever demonstrated that the use of an
automated registry cleaner, particularly by an untrained, inexperienced
computer user, does any real good, whatsoever. There's certainly been
no empirical evidence offered to demonstrate that the use of such
products to "clean" WinXP's registry improves a computer's performance
or stability. Given the potential for harm, it's just not worth the risk.
Granted, most registry "cleaners" won't cause problems each and
every time they're used, but the potential for harm is always there.
And, since no registry "cleaner" has ever been demonstrated to do any
good (think of them like treating the flu with chicken soup - there's no
real medicinal value, but it sometimes provides a warming placebo
effect), I always tell people that the risks far out-weigh the
non-existent benefits.
I will concede that a good registry *scanning* tool, in the hands
of an experienced and knowledgeable technician or hobbyist can be a
useful time-saving diagnostic tool, as long as it's not allowed to make
any changes automatically. But I really don't think that there are any
registry cleaners that are truly safe for the general public to use.
Experience has proven just the opposite: such tools simply are not safe
in the hands of the inexperienced user.
--
Bruce Chambers
Help us help you:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/555375
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin
Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. ~Bertrand Russell
The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has
killed a great many philosophers.
~ Denis Diderot

Ken Blake, MVP replied on 24-Sep-08 09:28 PM

On Wed, 24 Sep 2008 11:21:03 -0500, Coderedpl
Defragmenting is fine, but registry cleaning programs are *all* snake
oil. Cleaning of the registry isn't needed and is dangerous. Leave the
registry alone and don't use any registry cleaner. Despite what many
people think, and what vendors of registry cleaning software try to
convince you of, having unused registry entries doesn't really hurt
you.
The risk of a serious problem caused by a registry cleaner erroneously
removing an entry you need is far greater than any potential benefit
it may have.
--
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP - Windows Desktop Experience
Please Reply to the Newsgroup

John Barnett MVP replied on 25-Sep-08 05:24 PM

Defragmenting the Registry is worth doing. As for registry cleaner's they
are, to be honest, a waste of space. After I replied to your post yesterday
I downloaded Wise registry cleaner, and Auslogic.
A quick test produced the following:
Auslogic could claim back 11% of my registry by defragmenting it: Ok that
was fine I allowed it to do that. Having said that I didn't detect any
increase in startup speed.
CCleaner. This I already use, but have never used the registry cleaner. On
using the registry cleaner it flagged 4 errors. All 4 errors were MRU (most
recently used) website URL's. I knew what they were so allowed CCleaner to
remove them.
Wise Registry Cleaner. I ran this and I flagged well over 100 errors. At
least 50 of these it wasn't sure whether it could remove them safely or not.
The remaining 50 it said could be deleted but as most of the entries were
CLID's (which basically include a long string of numbers) without me
actually noting the CLID and then manually checking the registry I wasn't
prepared to let Wise registry cleaner remove them.
That was a simple, quick, test, nothing scientific. But why did Wise
registry cleaner flag so many registry problems compared to CCleaner? The
chances are that Wise registry cleaner hit so many 'false positives' that
removing them 'may' have caused more problems or me than leaving them. And
why did Wise registry cleaner advise me that 50% of the flagged errors
needed further consideration before 'I' took the decision to remove them. If
the registry cleaner was any good it should make the decision for me not, as
has happened here, start dithering!
While I agree 'it would make life easier' there is still an element of doubt
and, personally, I feel that that element of doubt isn't worth taking.
--
--
John Barnett MVP
Windows XP Associate Expert
Windows Desktop Experience
Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org
Web: http://www.silversurfer-guide.com
The information in this mail/post is supplied "as is". No warranty of any
kind, either expressed or implied, is made in relation to the accuracy,
reliability or content of this mail/post. The Author shall not be liable for
any direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the
use of, or inability to use, information or opinions expressed in this
mail/post..

Paul Montgomery replied on 25-Sep-08 05:32 PM

On Thu, 25 Sep 2008 22:24:20 +0100, "John Barnett MVP"
Only 4? That's very difficult to believe, unless you've never
installed/uninstalled anything much in the way of software on that
machine. Did you have it set to check everything? I am running only a
4-month-old installation and I get over 100 hits. System is trim and
tight as a new drum.
A more plausible answer: CCleaner is not set to make very aggressive
checks, or it makes less complete checks than WRC does.

Paul Montgomery replied on 25-Sep-08 05:36 PM

It was not over 100 hits... it was over 300 hits.

Paul Montgomery replied on 25-Sep-08 06:19 PM

On Thu, 25 Sep 2008 16:32:32 -0500, Paul Montgomery
I just ran my own test.
I let CCleaner run its check - took maybe 30 seconds. I let it delete
what it found (about 300 items).
Then I ran WRC using the default setup - it took 8 minutes and found
an additional 495 items with 97 being "unsafe" to fix.
I ran it again and had it run ALL checks - it took 11 minutes and
found 838 items with 156 being "unsafe".
It definitely checks more items than CCleaner.
I don't plan on letting it fix a damned thing ;-)

Paul Montgomery replied on 25-Sep-08 06:30 PM

Uninstalled WRC, restarted, ran CCleaner... it found six entries left
over from the uninstall.
Testing completed :-)

propman replied on 28-Sep-08 12:07 AM

FWIW, I have used registry function in CCleaner on numerous occassions
now and AFAIK never had a problem with it. One thing I have noticed
(and not only with CCleaner but also other registry proggies I've tried
out) is that they may not get all the broken links on the first pass;
that is, removal of broken links on the first pass will then seem to
generate other links that also need cleaning up....therefore I run
multiple scans untill all error messages disappear.
......others MMV. :-)

Paul Montgomery replied on 25-Sep-08 07:19 PM

Yet another reason to NOT use a "cleaner". If it cannot get things
right on the first pass, it is no good.

propman replied on 28-Sep-08 12:07 AM

Yeah, sure, uh-uh, whatever......*plonk*

Paul Montgomery replied on 26-Sep-08 12:17 AM

You're probably better at replacing flapper kits than you are at
optimizing your computer.

John Barnett MVP replied on 26-Sep-08 10:54 AM

Whether you believe it or not, Paul, 4 is the number of registry errors
flagged. All option in the registry cleaner of CCleaner are ticked. Software
is installed and uninstalled on this machine on a regular basis, however, I
am not one for installing 'anything and everything' Software has to come
from a reliable source I don't just pick a website and think 'hey I'll try
that.' Software should also have a reliable uninstall application, that way
most, if not all, of the application will be removed during the uninstall.
I should also point out that a clean image of my hard drive is stored on a
removable drive. This is kept up to date and my drive is re-imaged with the
'clean' image every month or so, depending upon how much software has been
installed or uninstalled.
I agree that CCleaner may not have been as aggressive as WRC, after all, the
registry option in CCleaner is somewhat of an 'after thought.' My test also
wasn't in anyway scientific, if it had have been then I would have done a
clean install of Vista then run CCleaner and WRC to see what was flagged on
the clean system. Then I would have started installing software and checking
again. Unfortunately I don't have the time to do that so my results were
just to let the OP know what happened when using these two applications.
When you ran WRC for a second time you got the results which are synonymous
with most, if not all, registry cleaners - it found a whole lot more errors.
But, at least we agree on one thing 'we don't plan on letting it fix a damn
thing'
--
--
John Barnett MVP
Windows XP Associate Expert
Windows Desktop Experience
Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org
Web: http://www.silversurfer-guide.com
The information in this mail/post is supplied "as is". No warranty of any
kind, either expressed or implied, is made in relation to the accuracy,
reliability or content of this mail/post. The Author shall not be liable for
any direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the
use of, or inability to use, information or opinions expressed in this
mail/post..

Paul Montgomery replied on 26-Sep-08 11:27 AM

On Fri, 26 Sep 2008 15:54:13 +0100, "John Barnett MVP"
I am the same way with software. It's probably the reason I have no
problems with my system and why it runs as fast as XP did on the same
hardware.
However, when I find that I don't like what I've downloaded, I quickly
uninstall it using either its uninstaller or Programs and Features
(which probably uses the same thing),
AHA! That would explain things a bit more.
Thanks for the explanations.
The second run used more of the options. The count of items on the
default options didn't change.
There were so many total options that it didn't even occur to me to
try to check each one. And I wasn't about to let it do its thing,
even though I have multiple backups (images AND clones) that are never
more than 12 hours old.

I've tried *'digeus registry cleaner' (http://www.digeus.com)* on Vista
x32. Can't compare with any other cleaners, cause there are not so many
of them whitch support Vista, but this was quite nice.
--
winkygiser

Bruce Chambers replied on 02-Oct-08 09:41 PM

What benchmarking utility did you use to verify this monumental
performance gain? Please provide the before and after longs so others
can verify your claimed results.
Or did you instead use an independent testing laboratory to establish
the "300%" figure?
No intelligent individual capable of critical thinking, much less any
experienced computer professional, is going to believe your claims until
you can offer objective evidence in support thereof.
--
Bruce Chambers
Help us help you:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/555375
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin
Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. ~Bertrand Russell
The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has
killed a great many philosophers.
~ Denis Diderot